The present invention concerns the use of personal data about a subscriber to a telephony operator by a third party voice service provider. More particularly the present invention relates to a method and to a device operative before such use to inform the subscriber of that use and to guarantee the subscriber's agreement to that use.
Prior to collecting personal data about a subscriber or transmitting that data to a third party for providing a service, the operation of informing the user and obtaining the user's explicit agreement thereto is known to the person skilled in the art as “opting in”.
In contrast, in “opting out” the user's agreement is implicit by default.
The invention applies in particular, and in non-limiting manner, to proximity services (based on location), for which a third party service provider requires subscriber location information.
Clearly a user's location is sensitive personal data that the user may not necessarily wish to communicate to a third party without explicitly agreeing to do so.
In the context of the invention, the explicit agreement or refusal of the user to communicate personal data to a service provider is obtained via a voice platform in Voice Service Provider (VSP) mode accessed via a telephone terminal by entering the access number of the service.
The platform is referred to below as the “voice resource server”.
A VSP offer is one whereby an operator supplies a service provider with an access network and a voice platform, the development and the hosting of voice applications specific to that service being a matter for the service provider.
In one aspect, the invention avoids re-routing voice calls between the equipments of the telephony operator and those used by the service provider; and
In another aspect, the invention ensures that the user is solicited only for calls to a service provider for which personal data is actually required.